The move by AMD from the current Socket 939 to Socket AM2 is pretty straightforward. We know the new AM2 processors will continue to be built using the same 90nm manufacturing process currently used for Athlon 64 processors; AMD does not show roadmaps with AM2 processors built on 65nm until early 2007. To this point AMD has also reiterated that AM2 will not bring any changes to the Athlon 64 core. In other words, the socket will change to the new AM2 Socket 940, but under the hood the current 939 and the upcoming AM2 940 will beat with the same heart. The only substantive difference expected with AM2 is the move from DDR memory to official AMD DDR2 Memory support.

With that in mind it is time to delve more deeply into the what is really new in AM2 - support for DDR2 memory with AMD's unique on-processor memory controller. Many have expressed expectations of remarkable performance increases for DDR2 on AM2. This would be at odds with what we have seen from DDR2 in the past. With the move of Intel's NetBurst architecture to DDR2 there were really no gains at all in memory performance. Those expecting big gains point out that the AM2 on-chip memory controller, like the Athlon 64 on-chip DDR controller, should provide much lower latency and higher efficiency than Intel's chipset-based memory controller for DDR2.

This is our first opportunity to look more closely at an AM2 DDR2 controller that might answer these questions about memory performance, since it is the first AM2 design to outperform Socket 939. Earlier AM2 spins could not match 939 memory performance, but they continued to improve. This is remarkable when you consider that new Intel processors pretty much have performed like final shipping processors some 5 months ahead of launch. AMD, on the other hand, has done most of their development work on the DDR2 memory controller in the last 3 months with just 6 weeks remaining before launch.

The most recent AM2 roadmap is still showing AM2 launching June 6, 2006 at Computex in Taipei. With just 6 weeks to go before launch, there is not a lot of time for surprises with AM2. As pointed out in AMD Socket-AM2 Performance Preview, there is not much wiggle room when OEMs expect mid-May shipments of AM2. All of this leads us to believe that our fourth spin of AM2 this year is very close to what will actually be shipping on June 6th. We can always hope for surprises, but given what AMD has said so far we should be very close to final silicon.

You already know that the AM2 does modestly outperform Athlon64 Socket 939. What will be explored here is how the memory controllers compare in latency and bandwidth, memory performance at various DDR2 settings compared to fast DDR400 2-2-2 memory, and basic overclocking performance of AM2 compared to Socket 939 when the CPU and memory are both pushed to improve performance.

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"Comments are often made that any evaluation of AM2 should include overclocking. Those theorists argue that the faster processor clock will move AM2 to the higher "bus" speeds that make for better efficiencies of the DDR2 memory controller - or something along those lines."

OK who hired this guy? He knows NOT what he speaks of. Its apparent through the entire review. Reply

I get everest of 42ns 2-2-2 @ 200 with FX60 speeds on DFI NF4. I get 36ns when cranking up to 250mhz 2-2-2. And that reminds me - I guess you did'nt want to embarres AMD's new chip too much by putting old, supported, DDR 550 @ 2-2-2 in there huh?

Actually our Beta motherboard and CPU were not 100% stable at 275. Also I don't have any memory that will do DDR550 (275 clock speed) at 2-2-2. Perhaps you mean another speed or other timings.

Our Crucial 2GB kit can do DDR500 at 3-2-3 timings, but our DDR2-800 memory is also capable of doing 3-2-3 at some speeds if the beta motherboard had supported those timings. That's the reason we compared 3-3-3 500, which should be very very close to each memory's top performance and a fair comparison.

Our latency testing was at a slower speed than your FX60, which is why you got lower latency numbers. We did, however, set both the DDR and DDR2 platforms to the exact same speed and ratios for all the benchmarking. The results comparison was as fair as we could make it. Reply

Let's see.. the 1GB PC-4400 DDR-550 kit is roughly 200$US for 2.5-3-3 timing. The DDR2-667 PC-5300 1GB kit is ~180$US for 3-3-3 timing for use to OC to DDR2-833. Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand your beef about spending $20 more for equal performance and using more juice. Reply

"Real world" single user and light multitasking apps aren't going to use up the bandwidth. A heavy duty multitasking environment is what's needed to really test the benefits of dual core + DDR2. The thing is, this doesn't really describe what most PCs spend 99% of their time doing.

That said, Conroe does look promising, and I'm interested to see what AMD can come up with to counter it. The initial performance advantages, according to *Intel* benchmarks, are pretty significant. Hopefully AM2 is just laying the groundwork for faster processors from AMD. Still, I can't help but think the performance boosts we've been getting since about 2001 (3.06Ghz P4 HT) are marginal, and that this is yet another marginal boost. Reply

I am still convinced that the transition from DDR to DDR2 is primiarily because it unifies the memory production industry, lowers power for server and mobile areans, increases memory bandwidth for upcoming memory hog (ie vista), and servers as a platform of increased memory capability. As for the last point I think most of us believe that quad core CPU's may use more memory bandwidth and the original DDR may act as a bottleneck for the system. I also think it is clear that memory bandwidth is not a bottleneck for AMD, but I applaud them taking care of a potential bottleneck before it exists, unlike Intel who has continuelly bottlenecked their CPUs by insuffient memory bandwidth. Reply

Was the DDR2 using a 2T command rate and was the DDR-400 tested using 1T? Is there an option to change the command rate on the AM2 motherboards? I believe at least some Pentium DDR2 motherboards with NVIDIA chipsets have the option to use a 1T command rate.

I've seen some Sandra 2005 standard memory tests gain 500MB/s or more just by using 1T instead of 2T. A gain like that would allow DDR2-533 1T to score higher than DDR2-800 2T in the Sandra 2005 standard memory test. If DDR2-800 could use a 1T command rate the performance gain in the non-synthetic benchmarks might be a few percent higher on average. While that doesn't sound like much it would be roughly double the DDR2-800 performance advantage over DDR-400 in this review.
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